Ginzan Onsen Fujiya

The Ginzan Onsen Fujiya building is a four-storey hotel in the bottom of a valley in one of Japan's snowiest regions. The project was essentially a renovation of an existing building. The most important part of the project was renewal of the building's facade using the same century-old wood as the original hotel, which also has wooden interiors. The space was reorganised with the inclusion of a central atrium that becomes the key point for distribution and is surrounded by a thin screen of 4 milimetre wide bamboo strips (sumushiko). This bamboo coating, alternating with masonry load-bearing structures, acts as a filter between outside and inside and lets a delicate, diffuse light into the building.
A semi-transparent glass known as dalle de verre, already in use in medieval times, is the only translucent connecting inside with outside.
The hotel interior has a calm, relaxing atmosphere that makes a stay in this hotel an unique sensorial experience. The building evolved directly out of the Ginzan Bath House Kuma designed a few years earlier in the same area.